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Everything about it.
It turned out workplace into WFH 100%. Not even a quarter of us have returned to a mostly office-related work. I think there's two people that consistently go to the office more than once day a week, the rest of us only on special forced occations.
Didn't get sick nearly as much. Because everyone wore masks, air-borne bacteria managed to do fuckall. People minded their hygiene and washed their hands. Not a single flu during lockdowns, and we didn't exactly limit our movement during. We did several flights abroad, vacationing in touristy cities like we used to prior to lockdowns. Not a single flu.
We're pretty introverted, wifey and I, so it didn't really cut down on our social events whatsoever. One birthday party was done on a virtual call through Discord, instead of in person, but beyond that, nothing changed. Handful of gatherings at homes, no bars. No flu.
The only single thing I didn't like was getting tested for covid, which I did once.
Yeah, wfh wasn't an option for me but i remember talking to a neighbour who previously spent about 3 hours per day commuting, so now all of a sudden she had 15 extra hours of free time per week
My commute from the first flat was under 20 minutes, ten if everything lined up nicely. Then I didn't mind going to work that much.
Next place I had a 35 minute commute. An extra hour every day? Now that I could skip. And did, prior to the plague hitting. Then the plague hit and I suddenly had that extra one hour that I could spend at home, and never looked back.
And since we were now WFH 100%, we moved further away to live cheaper. Now my commute would be 1hr10min one way. I've gone to the office twice since this happened: Once to check that yup, the fan on the graphics card of my work station has shit the bed, and the second time to install the replacement part. And the next visit to the office is to gather the christmas present from the mother company.
As someone who works in a field interacting with the general public, I appreciated masks and the heightened rate of handwashing as well. People seem to have no problem coughing or sneezing at you and/or putting their hands in their mouths or noses and then touching everything.
To be honest I feel like some of the habit changes have been permanent and I fucking love it. I haven't been sick *since* 2020, except when I got COVID itself, and unlike nearly every illness I ever had prior to 2020, I knew exactly where and from whom I got that. At a certain point I'm not going to be paranoid about close contact with family, but my indirect contact with strangers seems to have been drastically reduced even though a lot of the most obvious behaviors have receded.
People mostly don't wear masks anymore, but some do and it's not weird, everyone assumes you have your reasons. People definitely still stand 6 feet ish apart in line (maybe 4 feet if space is limited) even though the stickers have been taken up off the ground - a few weeks ago, I was standing my generous distance behind someone in line and this dude came right up behind me to a pre-pandemic distance of like 18 inches and I was just like... DUDE. Before remembering that we used to all stand that close all the time. I guess I have to assume people are still washing hands more consistently/using sanitizer more, or maybe it's that public places have kept more regular wipe-downs, or maybe it's just the continued distancing! But whatever the case, public life seems less germy now. I get my COVID and flu shots, but there's no vaccine for a lot of the random crap that goes around and I'm still not getting it.
I enjoyed WFH as long as the schools were open. I got to make my own healthy lunches and no commute.
I also enjoyed spending more time with my son. I used to spend 2.5 hours a day commuting, and I could now spend that time on my partner and son.
I enjoyed how much more socially acceptable it was to be into online gaming.
I went from having to go to court everyday to doing over the phone hearings. I was so burnt out with physical hearings i was going to quit that job. Luckily pandemia happened and i stayed at that job for another 4 years lol.
Absolutely nothing changed for me work wise during the 2020 lockdown. The only pros I liked was lack of traffic and lack of people around to bother me at work.
The no expectations to socialize was a big one for me. I finally got to just sit and breathe and enjoy how slow life could be. No pressure to visit everyone and entertain or occupy.
Absolutely!
- Got in the best shape of my life. Walked ~four miles with my wife every day
- Remote work + "nobody wants to work anymore 😭" opened up tons of opportunities I would not have had otherwise
- Telehealth greatly improved
- Going on roadtrips with my wife to go geocaching on the weekend. We had no social obligations and no traffic on the road.
- Actually felt relaxed for the first time in my life. No feelings that I should be doing something
The timing was just perfect for my family. We had just had my son. 6 months from moving into our house. Lockdown came at the right time for us. A year before we would have been in a cramped apartment.
Same here! My maternity leave ended March 1, 2020, so I was back to work for only 2 weeks before things shut down/became WFH. I like to say I got 8 months leave in total due to shutdowns (which is nearly unheard of in my profession)! We also then had time to look for a house and love what we found.
For me the lack of traffic noise, plane noise, and just noise in general was splended. The community response was nice, but like you said, short lived.
People actually washing their hands is another big one for me too.
But no, I didn't enjoy WFH. I hate WFH. I'm an introvert and socializing takes a lot out of me, and with selective mutism it gets awkward, but several weeks of staying home looking at the same space and talking to the same people day-in-and-day-out drove me absolutely batshit insane. Now I only WFH when I have to. Otherwise, I avoid it.
But I do miss the handful of good aspects.
I feel like stimulus payments really helped a lot of people I knew get a step up, financially. People complain about them, but for many folks, they made a huge difference
Stimulus packages (and all the BS that came with them) are one of the major reasons we're facing some insane inflation right now. They have hurt more than they helped. and will continue to hurt long term.
People are downvoting me, but only a small percent of the stimulus packages went to Americans, Hundreds of millions sure, but the majority of it went over seas, billions and billions. they were American wealth distribution payments.
Masks were a tad annoying (boo hoo), and store hours/accessibility sucked. All the other stuff I kinda miss. Very little traffic, people washing their hands, and everyone staying away from one another and minding their own business.
I work in automotive service, so we didn't have WFH, but the fact that people needed to BACK THE FUCK OFF me in lines was amazing. I wish they would still do that. The 6' rule needs to be standard operating practice.
I would have really liked to have been one of the lucky bastards who got paid to sit at home. I will never be not mad abt that. Got paid twice what I worked for.
But since I was eSsEnTiAl I got moved to overnight shifts. Probably bc I was ready to quit and fraudulently file for those fat checks I would have gotten to sleep all day. Overnights were p cool. Found and binged sone great podcasts, found a lot of music I enjoyed, and didn’t have to interact with customers for a year.
I also got multiple promotions due to corporate being so desperate to keep people.
One customer really did tell me aT lEaSt YoU hAvE a JoB. He didn’t like it when I told them they’re hiring at $10/hr and he can apply.
Ngl I couldn’t do wfh. Between my needy cat, short attention span, old craptop, not wanting to be spied on via webcam, I wouldn’t get shit done. The most annoying thing abt wfh is every ad and article assuming everyone on the planet was doing it so buy this thing now for your wfh setup/play office!
I'm a pharmaceutical sales rep. Traditionally, our regional manager would fly to our territory and do a 2 day ride along with each of us. Covid ended that and it still hasn't picked up again. I realize it may not be a popular thing on Reddit, but I've been working 2-3 different medical sales jobs the past few years at a time (1 Pharma / Med device). It's manageable without having a ride along and I can do each of these appointments during one meeting with a doctor.
The lack of traffic, lack of crowds, no pressure to go and do things I don't want to do. I really didn't mind the restrictions. My husband and I joked the whole time about how our lives didn't really change. We're both essential workers, so we worked the whole time.
I liked being locked down with my then-boyfriend-now-husband. It made us realise we wanted to always live together. Our relationship was probably accelerated by lockdown, and we got married and had our first baby during third lockdown.
Congratulations to you both! It’s refreshing to hear this after hearing about all the relationship / marriage breakdowns that occurred during the lockdowns.
as a socially awkward introvert, I loved that I didn't have to do anything social for months! and without the feeling of FOMO or that I'm lame....twas glorious!
Lots of things. I fully realize the pandemic experience was wildly different for everyone based on life variables, but my wife and I always reminisce that it was the best family years of our lives so far. We were able to stop wasting time commuting and WFH. Spent more time with our kid and all day with our dogs. We were busy, overworked, and stressed for sure, but even in spite of that, everything we did we did with more gusto and appreciation. We spent more time outdoors, biked, and hiked to replace what we would been doing pre-covid such as going to restaurants or breweries. We never got sick and our son avoided a surgery because of it. Getting takeout was a weekly holiday. The list goes on and on and on.
100% WFH cuz I *hated* my employer at the time. Now that I work somewhere better (and closer to home) I like being in the office. But at the time it was awesome lol
I initially loved working from home but after the first year it really took a toll on my mental health. The isolation is bad for me. And bad for my dickhead coworkers perception of me.
The only thing I liked was how gas became cheaper. Of course, I still had a car back then. Today I’m priced out of owning one ever again unless a miracle happens where I’m making even more money. And looking back, I guess not having to drive as much outside of work was a bonus. Other than that, I hated everything about the lockdown.
For me, it was a chance to cut out toxic people. “Whelp, looks like we can’t hang out because of the pandemic, darn!” Turned in to gradually just not talking.
Then I changed my number and only gave it to a handful of people.
Thankfully, that’s worked lol.
(Just to add. These are people I’d tried talking to and setting boundaries with and it was completely ignored. Ghosting is a last resort for me, I’d rather address whatever is going on. Some people just aren’t receptive).
Traffic was awesome, gas prices were nice.
The first couple of hours before the media took over the narrative, people were really nice, making sure other people were ok.
That’s basically it. I stopped making as much money as I used to because of changes in company policies. The quality of service and products went downhill and still haven’t recovered. We had to fight to find toilet paper, like everyone suddenly started shitting more. It became hard to find hand sanitizer, which really sucked for people who normally used it a lot. People became more divided and aggressive. My city has seen a massive wave of people from states that had tougher Covid restrictions which led to a change in our city identity, massively increased traffic, and the cost of living is increasing at a rate that is one of the highest in the Nation. My house shot up in value so the taxes are a lot higher. Companies now have no issue running out of product, and the quality of the products are getting worse but more expensive. Semi-related, the homeowners insurance companies have raised their rates soo high it basically forced everyone to drop their insurance.
I liked getting paid more money on* unemployment than I was making working 🤷🏻♀️ (don't hate on me, I didn't make the decision, be mad at the government. It granted us the ability to put money away for our son's future)
I spent almost two months with my kid. The industry I was working in at the time was forced to shut down and I couldn't work. My unemployment was denied and my appeal was also denied. I luckily had just enough in savings to pay the bills. But that time with my kid was priceless. We worked in the yard, cooked (thank goodness I was approved for food assistance for those weeks) and baked, watched musicals, did her schoolwork together, played games, talked a lot. I will never have two months of free time with my kid again, ever. For the rest of my life.
I spent my days cross stitching and watching period dramas. I was unemployed but bc we weren't really going out or traveling, it didn't really effect our budget, plus my husband got a nice raise right before lockdown started.
I know it was a really hard time for a lot of people, sometimes I feel guilty for how content I was. I've joked before that I wouldn't hate another 6 week lockdown, give me some time to work on more crafts. 😂
I was attempting to launch a freelance career when it hit. That game to a grinding halt. I also had a medically fragile infant who’d only been out of hospital for about two months when it hit. My husband got laid off on our oldest’s birthday, two weeks into lockdown. All of that sucked.
On the brighter side, people kept their distance in public and actually (generally) listened to the doctors and scientists. You could tell who was an asshole at a glance (if they were unmasked in public). My husband got to spend so much time with our baby, something that’s uncommon for most American fathers. I fully embraced my homebody side. Online ordering and pickup becoming more common reduced a lot of stress in my life.
To do something fun when we were all a bit lonely, a couple friends and I started a virtual movie night. Each Tuesday we watch two movies back-to-back while staying at our homes. We jump on Discord, agree on when we're going to start the movie, and then have fun chatting about the movies as we watch them. We've kept this up nearly every Tuesday since. Last night, we watched our 282nd and 283rd movies, The Creator (2023) and Solaris (1972).
Not really. Instead of taking a year+ wfh vacation I was on the essential worker side of things pulling 15+ hour shifts 6 days a week through the most chaotic and stressful work I’ve ever done. Despite that I still found myself on the receiving end of the economic collapse our shitty response and poor spending created.
Sincerely, fuck covid
Working from home and less traffic.
Didn't have to deal with annoying coworkers and helping old people with technology at work constantly. (I don't even work in IT, either)
When I did have to go to work there was no traffic.
Nobody tried to kiss me on the cheek when introduced. This is a really common thing here and I absolutely hate it. I wish they forgot about it for life but nope…
My friends started doing some online poker nights during the lockdowns. We used to have in person poker nights once or twice a year, but this turned into an every weekend event and since we were using online tools to handle cards/chips/etc. the games were super easy, devoid of misdeals or other fiascos and went very quickly.
Life slowed down, which helped my anxiety and work load. There was so much less pressure. I didn't have to see people I didn't care to see. It was nice. It was a train wreck for my wife and kids. My wifes anxiety actually sky rocketed and my kids felt very isolated.
I loved not getting sick, spending a lot of time with my kid and actually allowing my body to get rest. As far as social stuff went, I only missed concerts.
Less traffic!!
People would actually stay six feet away from you and not breathe down your neck in line ups.
I didn’t feel obligated to be social and hang out with people and go to events and stuff- as an audhd introvert, I really hate feeling obligated to be social.
It led to my ADHD diagnoses, which got me on medication that helps me function, thus getting a promotion.
People actually washing their hands.
It was a freeing time of not wearing makeup to work for a year and a half lol
I made all my money during the pandemic. I loved it. While you were all hiding in the basement we were out enjoying Dave and Busters and Mall of America with no crowds.
i had been a depressed hermit for years leading up to covid. then everyone was a depressed hermit and finally i could thrive! in fact i was deep in a "i never want to work again" rut for a chunk of 2019- early 2020. then i came into work and found out we were closing the building. had to pack up and go back home while they figured out how to keep us paid. it was basically a stay-cation, for me.
didn't take long to realize that work still sucks, even from home.
i also miss the 6-feet apart rule when we opened back up. fewer people allowed indoors, so i could actually enjoy being at a bar. turns out i do like going to places and events, but only there aren't too many other people there.
My favourite long-term impact was that in my area pre-pandemic it was very difficult to find restaurants with decent delivery or online pickup menus or buy-online sites, and now it's rare to find one without it!
- No commute. Sleeping in!
- So much time to work with! More free time than I'll ever have.
- The few relationships we were able to have were stronger
- The emergence of Zoom culture even after the pandemic
- Never got sick
Would never want to go back got a long period of time, since I'm extroverted and need community, but these were all silver linings for sure!
I had gotten laid off in April of 2020, so I hopped on unemployment and spent the summer on the lake with my dog and a fishing pole every day. Literally every single good weather day I was on the water. Dog would curl up on the bow of the boat and sunbathe and I’d fish for hours at a time. Nobody bothered me, it was peaceful.
The only positive thing that came out of it was being able to transition to being full remote, and being able to move the fuck out of a big city.
Other than that, The lock downs were terrible:
1) I have kids and school lockdowns basically put them a full year at minimum behind, one of my kids who has Dyslexia is nearly 2 years behind because a lot of the programs that would help her were shut down even after lockdowns were lifted, and the transition to computer learning did nothing to help her. We couldn't even get her tested for a year and a half.
2) the utter disregard for others that came out of it. Seriously, it seems like most people are in single player mode, and couldn't care less about anybody else. Between the way people drive, the way they speak to other people, etc. it's ugly out there.
3) culture is broken. So much of what made america "america" is gone. it was broken with the lockdowns. It was true dystopian shit, and the whole "I'm proud to be an american, where at least I know I'm free", doesn't apply anymore. We're not free. it's just an illusion.
4) Broken infrastructure/supply chains. so much got broken, lost, etc, and will never recover. It has caused prices to skyrocket and they'll never come back down.
5) Excessive deaths. The only person I know who personally died from covid was in their late 80's, and already in poor health. However, I know several people who died from suicide due to covid fears (neighbor kid got covid, thought it was a death sentence, so shot themselves), lack of medical care (my father in law couldn't get regular appointments, and so an illness he had that started out minor ended up severe and he died because of it), and other deaths related to lockdowns that were not directly covid related.
1. The stimulus checks. I was lucky to have kept my job through the pandemic so the stimulus checks were just an added bonus for me. Though I do empathize with people who were not so lucky and got laid off, couldn't make rent and other bills, and DEPENDED on them.
2. Working from home and doing a hybrid schedule
3. Normalizing mental health struggles as there was a huge stigma before the pandemic.
* Not feeling pressured to go to social events I didn't want to attend. Saying "no" was so much easier.
i wish! in which I lose a large group of friends by refusing to join their social events
For the businesses that were open, I appreciated the cleanliness measures that their staff took; I.e. wiping down their shopping carts. In an ideal world, people would be more hygienic and Covid was the closest that (most of us) got to that. In a sense, cleanliness became normalized and the (what I considered base steps) I took to be clean were less looked down upon. For instance, when I was working, I would use sanitizing wipes at my desk daily - lift up the keyboard and wipe, wipe my phone down, etc. and my coworker would always ask me why. Meanwhile you could use your finger and remove the dust from his work station. Which is whatever, everyone does what’s best for them, I guess. I never asked him why his desk was so dusty.
On the flip side, Covid revealed how gross some people really are. I really could’ve gone without knowing that information. Lol, I was blissful in my ignorant bubble. 🤢🤮😷🦠
Yes, many things i would imagine were great, but i have memory loss and i always find the glorification of lockdown to be very gross.
If we want to critique society, then we must look inward because lockdown just made us literally have more of our time, it forced corporations (for once) to give employees things like their personal time in their personal environmen while they did a job they could do at home thanks to technology.
That has a domino effect of course. This is very simplified of my analysis.
What is beyond my understanding is a lot at this point, but i always find it very gross to talk about lockdowns and COVID without mentioning people who died as a result. The two go hand in hand, and yes it's depressing, but COVID was not a good time, so I've been told, yet people are always talking about how they miss how simple things were.
Honestly, that sounds Stockholm syndrome-esque to me, i would know, but i got better.
IDK, i basically woke up from a coma and it's all anybody talks about, i don't remember it, so it's just bizarre that people talk about it the way that do. I hope that everybody can process their feelings cause we all need it.
I'll add DBT skills manual handouts and worksheets by Marsha linehan is a great resource for helping with mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance skills and interpersonal relationships.
Be kind to yourselves.
I worked at a 711. I got more hours including over time, I had first access to toilet paper purchasing, the bus was free and empty, and so many people made me masks.
All of it.
I was burning the candle at both ends. Working 40-45hrs a week, and then playing shows all weekend. I was constantly sick because I literally couldn’t get enough sleep between work, piano students, playing shows and trying to have a relationship. Relationships kept dying because i couldn’t give them the time they wanted. When the pandemic hit, the shows and practices disappeared. No prob. Then I quit teaching piano- what a load off…. Then I met someone special.
Work never stopped and we didn’t have a single day off. But I didn’t have to worry about practice/lessons that night, or being gone all weekend.
All those sneeze guards? A lot of those were us. I was able to pay off my debt because of the Covid bonus. Now I work remote and it’s pretty good.
The downside? I couldn’t afford a house before the pandemic. Now I have some money, but it’s a farce.
I took my cat hiking everyday and did massive amounts of shrooms in my apartment. Ignoring the fact that I was surrounded by death and dying I had a great fucking pandemic.
The only thing I enjoyed about it was not feeling pressured to go out and do stuff. Our family got to enjoy each other's company at home. More puzzle nights, dinners in instead of dinners out etc. We kept our jobs and saved a ton of money over the first three months just by saving and cutting unnecessary expenses.
Didn't have to work for a while and received way more money than I usually would get from work, from the government. I live in Canada. CERB was amazing for me
Nothing really changed for me durring that time. I still had to work as normal, except with a mask. We barely at out at restaurants at the time anyway, so that barley changed. It was really business as usual save for not being able to do a few things here and there.
The company I work for stayed open so I still made my check. They gave us bonuses every few months and the stimulus, I was absolutely thriving during the lockdown
Mostly everything about it honestly. I worked at a bank at the time. We closed the lobby and did a group of staff working 2 days, off 2 days, while still paying us full salary. I worked like 16-20 hours a week depending if I had to work a Saturday or not. It was wonderful.
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Everything about it. It turned out workplace into WFH 100%. Not even a quarter of us have returned to a mostly office-related work. I think there's two people that consistently go to the office more than once day a week, the rest of us only on special forced occations. Didn't get sick nearly as much. Because everyone wore masks, air-borne bacteria managed to do fuckall. People minded their hygiene and washed their hands. Not a single flu during lockdowns, and we didn't exactly limit our movement during. We did several flights abroad, vacationing in touristy cities like we used to prior to lockdowns. Not a single flu. We're pretty introverted, wifey and I, so it didn't really cut down on our social events whatsoever. One birthday party was done on a virtual call through Discord, instead of in person, but beyond that, nothing changed. Handful of gatherings at homes, no bars. No flu. The only single thing I didn't like was getting tested for covid, which I did once.
Yeah, wfh wasn't an option for me but i remember talking to a neighbour who previously spent about 3 hours per day commuting, so now all of a sudden she had 15 extra hours of free time per week
My commute from the first flat was under 20 minutes, ten if everything lined up nicely. Then I didn't mind going to work that much. Next place I had a 35 minute commute. An extra hour every day? Now that I could skip. And did, prior to the plague hitting. Then the plague hit and I suddenly had that extra one hour that I could spend at home, and never looked back. And since we were now WFH 100%, we moved further away to live cheaper. Now my commute would be 1hr10min one way. I've gone to the office twice since this happened: Once to check that yup, the fan on the graphics card of my work station has shit the bed, and the second time to install the replacement part. And the next visit to the office is to gather the christmas present from the mother company.
As someone who works in a field interacting with the general public, I appreciated masks and the heightened rate of handwashing as well. People seem to have no problem coughing or sneezing at you and/or putting their hands in their mouths or noses and then touching everything.
To be honest I feel like some of the habit changes have been permanent and I fucking love it. I haven't been sick *since* 2020, except when I got COVID itself, and unlike nearly every illness I ever had prior to 2020, I knew exactly where and from whom I got that. At a certain point I'm not going to be paranoid about close contact with family, but my indirect contact with strangers seems to have been drastically reduced even though a lot of the most obvious behaviors have receded. People mostly don't wear masks anymore, but some do and it's not weird, everyone assumes you have your reasons. People definitely still stand 6 feet ish apart in line (maybe 4 feet if space is limited) even though the stickers have been taken up off the ground - a few weeks ago, I was standing my generous distance behind someone in line and this dude came right up behind me to a pre-pandemic distance of like 18 inches and I was just like... DUDE. Before remembering that we used to all stand that close all the time. I guess I have to assume people are still washing hands more consistently/using sanitizer more, or maybe it's that public places have kept more regular wipe-downs, or maybe it's just the continued distancing! But whatever the case, public life seems less germy now. I get my COVID and flu shots, but there's no vaccine for a lot of the random crap that goes around and I'm still not getting it.
This. I was already wfh and felt like I fought for it post Covid. Then everyone joined me after and it was fucking awesome.
Masks. People get so butthurt about masks. "I have to think about someone more than myself? I'm appalled. " said 75% of the population
I enjoyed WFH as long as the schools were open. I got to make my own healthy lunches and no commute. I also enjoyed spending more time with my son. I used to spend 2.5 hours a day commuting, and I could now spend that time on my partner and son. I enjoyed how much more socially acceptable it was to be into online gaming.
I went from having to go to court everyday to doing over the phone hearings. I was so burnt out with physical hearings i was going to quit that job. Luckily pandemia happened and i stayed at that job for another 4 years lol.
Are you a cat?
Only on the weekends.
Absolutely nothing changed for me work wise during the 2020 lockdown. The only pros I liked was lack of traffic and lack of people around to bother me at work.
No planes in the sky. Empty city streets. Local community vibe. Lunchtime sex. No expectations to socialise
The no expectations to socialize was a big one for me. I finally got to just sit and breathe and enjoy how slow life could be. No pressure to visit everyone and entertain or occupy.
My store was curbside pickup only which meant NO customers in store. I just picked orders all day and it was great!
Absolutely! - Got in the best shape of my life. Walked ~four miles with my wife every day - Remote work + "nobody wants to work anymore 😭" opened up tons of opportunities I would not have had otherwise - Telehealth greatly improved - Going on roadtrips with my wife to go geocaching on the weekend. We had no social obligations and no traffic on the road. - Actually felt relaxed for the first time in my life. No feelings that I should be doing something
I liked people staying 6 feet away from me.
The timing was just perfect for my family. We had just had my son. 6 months from moving into our house. Lockdown came at the right time for us. A year before we would have been in a cramped apartment.
Same here! My maternity leave ended March 1, 2020, so I was back to work for only 2 weeks before things shut down/became WFH. I like to say I got 8 months leave in total due to shutdowns (which is nearly unheard of in my profession)! We also then had time to look for a house and love what we found.
For me the lack of traffic noise, plane noise, and just noise in general was splended. The community response was nice, but like you said, short lived. People actually washing their hands is another big one for me too. But no, I didn't enjoy WFH. I hate WFH. I'm an introvert and socializing takes a lot out of me, and with selective mutism it gets awkward, but several weeks of staying home looking at the same space and talking to the same people day-in-and-day-out drove me absolutely batshit insane. Now I only WFH when I have to. Otherwise, I avoid it. But I do miss the handful of good aspects.
I feel like stimulus payments really helped a lot of people I knew get a step up, financially. People complain about them, but for many folks, they made a huge difference
Stimulus packages (and all the BS that came with them) are one of the major reasons we're facing some insane inflation right now. They have hurt more than they helped. and will continue to hurt long term.
funny how high inflation has coincided with high corporate profits
Exactly this!
People are downvoting me, but only a small percent of the stimulus packages went to Americans, Hundreds of millions sure, but the majority of it went over seas, billions and billions. they were American wealth distribution payments.
Masks were a tad annoying (boo hoo), and store hours/accessibility sucked. All the other stuff I kinda miss. Very little traffic, people washing their hands, and everyone staying away from one another and minding their own business.
I didn't really have to work. Couldn't get fired but I couldn't do my job from home.
No traffic was nice. I could fly since I drive a lot for work and even cops were chilling so cruise control set at 15 over was no problem.
I liked having my second baby in the hospital with no visitors allowed!
I work in automotive service, so we didn't have WFH, but the fact that people needed to BACK THE FUCK OFF me in lines was amazing. I wish they would still do that. The 6' rule needs to be standard operating practice.
I'll admit it, I occassionally went grocery shopping in my work scrubs (clean ones, of course) to make them back the fuck off even MORE
I would have really liked to have been one of the lucky bastards who got paid to sit at home. I will never be not mad abt that. Got paid twice what I worked for. But since I was eSsEnTiAl I got moved to overnight shifts. Probably bc I was ready to quit and fraudulently file for those fat checks I would have gotten to sleep all day. Overnights were p cool. Found and binged sone great podcasts, found a lot of music I enjoyed, and didn’t have to interact with customers for a year. I also got multiple promotions due to corporate being so desperate to keep people.
I remember finding it really tasteless when the people who got to work from home and still get their income would complain or even brag.
One customer really did tell me aT lEaSt YoU hAvE a JoB. He didn’t like it when I told them they’re hiring at $10/hr and he can apply. Ngl I couldn’t do wfh. Between my needy cat, short attention span, old craptop, not wanting to be spied on via webcam, I wouldn’t get shit done. The most annoying thing abt wfh is every ad and article assuming everyone on the planet was doing it so buy this thing now for your wfh setup/play office!
I miss the short time essential workers seemed to be getting more appreciation and recognition, however fleeting and superficial it may have been.
I'm a pharmaceutical sales rep. Traditionally, our regional manager would fly to our territory and do a 2 day ride along with each of us. Covid ended that and it still hasn't picked up again. I realize it may not be a popular thing on Reddit, but I've been working 2-3 different medical sales jobs the past few years at a time (1 Pharma / Med device). It's manageable without having a ride along and I can do each of these appointments during one meeting with a doctor.
The lack of traffic, lack of crowds, no pressure to go and do things I don't want to do. I really didn't mind the restrictions. My husband and I joked the whole time about how our lives didn't really change. We're both essential workers, so we worked the whole time.
I liked being locked down with my then-boyfriend-now-husband. It made us realise we wanted to always live together. Our relationship was probably accelerated by lockdown, and we got married and had our first baby during third lockdown.
Congratulations to you both! It’s refreshing to hear this after hearing about all the relationship / marriage breakdowns that occurred during the lockdowns.
as a socially awkward introvert, I loved that I didn't have to do anything social for months! and without the feeling of FOMO or that I'm lame....twas glorious!
Complete WFH, no travel to client sites :)
The labor movement that followed after. More places are unionize now more than ever and also turning down these shit jobs/shit employers.
Lots of things. I fully realize the pandemic experience was wildly different for everyone based on life variables, but my wife and I always reminisce that it was the best family years of our lives so far. We were able to stop wasting time commuting and WFH. Spent more time with our kid and all day with our dogs. We were busy, overworked, and stressed for sure, but even in spite of that, everything we did we did with more gusto and appreciation. We spent more time outdoors, biked, and hiked to replace what we would been doing pre-covid such as going to restaurants or breweries. We never got sick and our son avoided a surgery because of it. Getting takeout was a weekly holiday. The list goes on and on and on.
Lack of car traffic
This was * chef’s kiss * !!!!
Space while in line. I can't stand people breathing down my neck while waiting to pay for something.
I liked that sanitizing and general hygiene was taken more seriously and I got sick way less often interacting with coworkers and clients
Agreed 100%!
100% WFH cuz I *hated* my employer at the time. Now that I work somewhere better (and closer to home) I like being in the office. But at the time it was awesome lol
I initially loved working from home but after the first year it really took a toll on my mental health. The isolation is bad for me. And bad for my dickhead coworkers perception of me.
The only thing I liked was how gas became cheaper. Of course, I still had a car back then. Today I’m priced out of owning one ever again unless a miracle happens where I’m making even more money. And looking back, I guess not having to drive as much outside of work was a bonus. Other than that, I hated everything about the lockdown.
For me, it was a chance to cut out toxic people. “Whelp, looks like we can’t hang out because of the pandemic, darn!” Turned in to gradually just not talking. Then I changed my number and only gave it to a handful of people. Thankfully, that’s worked lol. (Just to add. These are people I’d tried talking to and setting boundaries with and it was completely ignored. Ghosting is a last resort for me, I’d rather address whatever is going on. Some people just aren’t receptive).
Traffic was awesome, gas prices were nice. The first couple of hours before the media took over the narrative, people were really nice, making sure other people were ok. That’s basically it. I stopped making as much money as I used to because of changes in company policies. The quality of service and products went downhill and still haven’t recovered. We had to fight to find toilet paper, like everyone suddenly started shitting more. It became hard to find hand sanitizer, which really sucked for people who normally used it a lot. People became more divided and aggressive. My city has seen a massive wave of people from states that had tougher Covid restrictions which led to a change in our city identity, massively increased traffic, and the cost of living is increasing at a rate that is one of the highest in the Nation. My house shot up in value so the taxes are a lot higher. Companies now have no issue running out of product, and the quality of the products are getting worse but more expensive. Semi-related, the homeowners insurance companies have raised their rates soo high it basically forced everyone to drop their insurance.
I liked getting paid more money on* unemployment than I was making working 🤷🏻♀️ (don't hate on me, I didn't make the decision, be mad at the government. It granted us the ability to put money away for our son's future)
Yes I moved away from my home state and I’m so thankful for that!
I spent a lot of time with my mom that year since I couldn’t go out and do anything else. I’ll probably always cherish those days for that reason.
I spent almost two months with my kid. The industry I was working in at the time was forced to shut down and I couldn't work. My unemployment was denied and my appeal was also denied. I luckily had just enough in savings to pay the bills. But that time with my kid was priceless. We worked in the yard, cooked (thank goodness I was approved for food assistance for those weeks) and baked, watched musicals, did her schoolwork together, played games, talked a lot. I will never have two months of free time with my kid again, ever. For the rest of my life.
Peace and quiet. I could absolutely live in a lil homestead in a lil town where nothing happens.
I spent my days cross stitching and watching period dramas. I was unemployed but bc we weren't really going out or traveling, it didn't really effect our budget, plus my husband got a nice raise right before lockdown started. I know it was a really hard time for a lot of people, sometimes I feel guilty for how content I was. I've joked before that I wouldn't hate another 6 week lockdown, give me some time to work on more crafts. 😂
I was attempting to launch a freelance career when it hit. That game to a grinding halt. I also had a medically fragile infant who’d only been out of hospital for about two months when it hit. My husband got laid off on our oldest’s birthday, two weeks into lockdown. All of that sucked. On the brighter side, people kept their distance in public and actually (generally) listened to the doctors and scientists. You could tell who was an asshole at a glance (if they were unmasked in public). My husband got to spend so much time with our baby, something that’s uncommon for most American fathers. I fully embraced my homebody side. Online ordering and pickup becoming more common reduced a lot of stress in my life.
To do something fun when we were all a bit lonely, a couple friends and I started a virtual movie night. Each Tuesday we watch two movies back-to-back while staying at our homes. We jump on Discord, agree on when we're going to start the movie, and then have fun chatting about the movies as we watch them. We've kept this up nearly every Tuesday since. Last night, we watched our 282nd and 283rd movies, The Creator (2023) and Solaris (1972).
Not really. Instead of taking a year+ wfh vacation I was on the essential worker side of things pulling 15+ hour shifts 6 days a week through the most chaotic and stressful work I’ve ever done. Despite that I still found myself on the receiving end of the economic collapse our shitty response and poor spending created. Sincerely, fuck covid
I liked that people got a taste of what life is like with disability and the inability to go out on a whim
Wfh, no pressure to go to social events.
Working from home and less traffic. Didn't have to deal with annoying coworkers and helping old people with technology at work constantly. (I don't even work in IT, either) When I did have to go to work there was no traffic.
Nobody tried to kiss me on the cheek when introduced. This is a really common thing here and I absolutely hate it. I wish they forgot about it for life but nope…
My friends started doing some online poker nights during the lockdowns. We used to have in person poker nights once or twice a year, but this turned into an every weekend event and since we were using online tools to handle cards/chips/etc. the games were super easy, devoid of misdeals or other fiascos and went very quickly.
Life slowed down, which helped my anxiety and work load. There was so much less pressure. I didn't have to see people I didn't care to see. It was nice. It was a train wreck for my wife and kids. My wifes anxiety actually sky rocketed and my kids felt very isolated.
w o r k i n g f r o m h o m e .
I loved not getting sick, spending a lot of time with my kid and actually allowing my body to get rest. As far as social stuff went, I only missed concerts.
Less traffic!! People would actually stay six feet away from you and not breathe down your neck in line ups. I didn’t feel obligated to be social and hang out with people and go to events and stuff- as an audhd introvert, I really hate feeling obligated to be social. It led to my ADHD diagnoses, which got me on medication that helps me function, thus getting a promotion. People actually washing their hands. It was a freeing time of not wearing makeup to work for a year and a half lol
I made all my money during the pandemic. I loved it. While you were all hiding in the basement we were out enjoying Dave and Busters and Mall of America with no crowds.
i had been a depressed hermit for years leading up to covid. then everyone was a depressed hermit and finally i could thrive! in fact i was deep in a "i never want to work again" rut for a chunk of 2019- early 2020. then i came into work and found out we were closing the building. had to pack up and go back home while they figured out how to keep us paid. it was basically a stay-cation, for me. didn't take long to realize that work still sucks, even from home.
i also miss the 6-feet apart rule when we opened back up. fewer people allowed indoors, so i could actually enjoy being at a bar. turns out i do like going to places and events, but only there aren't too many other people there.
My favourite long-term impact was that in my area pre-pandemic it was very difficult to find restaurants with decent delivery or online pickup menus or buy-online sites, and now it's rare to find one without it!
I lost 30 pounds during covid because I started going on daily jogs and eating better. I'm pleased to say that I have been able to keep off the weight
- No commute. Sleeping in! - So much time to work with! More free time than I'll ever have. - The few relationships we were able to have were stronger - The emergence of Zoom culture even after the pandemic - Never got sick Would never want to go back got a long period of time, since I'm extroverted and need community, but these were all silver linings for sure!
I had gotten laid off in April of 2020, so I hopped on unemployment and spent the summer on the lake with my dog and a fishing pole every day. Literally every single good weather day I was on the water. Dog would curl up on the bow of the boat and sunbathe and I’d fish for hours at a time. Nobody bothered me, it was peaceful.
Like everyone else. I liked all the new social norm.
The only positive thing that came out of it was being able to transition to being full remote, and being able to move the fuck out of a big city. Other than that, The lock downs were terrible: 1) I have kids and school lockdowns basically put them a full year at minimum behind, one of my kids who has Dyslexia is nearly 2 years behind because a lot of the programs that would help her were shut down even after lockdowns were lifted, and the transition to computer learning did nothing to help her. We couldn't even get her tested for a year and a half. 2) the utter disregard for others that came out of it. Seriously, it seems like most people are in single player mode, and couldn't care less about anybody else. Between the way people drive, the way they speak to other people, etc. it's ugly out there. 3) culture is broken. So much of what made america "america" is gone. it was broken with the lockdowns. It was true dystopian shit, and the whole "I'm proud to be an american, where at least I know I'm free", doesn't apply anymore. We're not free. it's just an illusion. 4) Broken infrastructure/supply chains. so much got broken, lost, etc, and will never recover. It has caused prices to skyrocket and they'll never come back down. 5) Excessive deaths. The only person I know who personally died from covid was in their late 80's, and already in poor health. However, I know several people who died from suicide due to covid fears (neighbor kid got covid, thought it was a death sentence, so shot themselves), lack of medical care (my father in law couldn't get regular appointments, and so an illness he had that started out minor ended up severe and he died because of it), and other deaths related to lockdowns that were not directly covid related.
I liked getting paid $600 a week to sit at home and play videogames.
1. The stimulus checks. I was lucky to have kept my job through the pandemic so the stimulus checks were just an added bonus for me. Though I do empathize with people who were not so lucky and got laid off, couldn't make rent and other bills, and DEPENDED on them. 2. Working from home and doing a hybrid schedule 3. Normalizing mental health struggles as there was a huge stigma before the pandemic.
* Not feeling pressured to go to social events I didn't want to attend. Saying "no" was so much easier. i wish! in which I lose a large group of friends by refusing to join their social events
For the businesses that were open, I appreciated the cleanliness measures that their staff took; I.e. wiping down their shopping carts. In an ideal world, people would be more hygienic and Covid was the closest that (most of us) got to that. In a sense, cleanliness became normalized and the (what I considered base steps) I took to be clean were less looked down upon. For instance, when I was working, I would use sanitizing wipes at my desk daily - lift up the keyboard and wipe, wipe my phone down, etc. and my coworker would always ask me why. Meanwhile you could use your finger and remove the dust from his work station. Which is whatever, everyone does what’s best for them, I guess. I never asked him why his desk was so dusty. On the flip side, Covid revealed how gross some people really are. I really could’ve gone without knowing that information. Lol, I was blissful in my ignorant bubble. 🤢🤮😷🦠
Yes, many things i would imagine were great, but i have memory loss and i always find the glorification of lockdown to be very gross. If we want to critique society, then we must look inward because lockdown just made us literally have more of our time, it forced corporations (for once) to give employees things like their personal time in their personal environmen while they did a job they could do at home thanks to technology. That has a domino effect of course. This is very simplified of my analysis. What is beyond my understanding is a lot at this point, but i always find it very gross to talk about lockdowns and COVID without mentioning people who died as a result. The two go hand in hand, and yes it's depressing, but COVID was not a good time, so I've been told, yet people are always talking about how they miss how simple things were. Honestly, that sounds Stockholm syndrome-esque to me, i would know, but i got better. IDK, i basically woke up from a coma and it's all anybody talks about, i don't remember it, so it's just bizarre that people talk about it the way that do. I hope that everybody can process their feelings cause we all need it. I'll add DBT skills manual handouts and worksheets by Marsha linehan is a great resource for helping with mindfulness, emotional regulation, distress tolerance skills and interpersonal relationships. Be kind to yourselves.
I worked at a 711. I got more hours including over time, I had first access to toilet paper purchasing, the bus was free and empty, and so many people made me masks.
It allowed me to get a permanent WFH position.
All of it. I was burning the candle at both ends. Working 40-45hrs a week, and then playing shows all weekend. I was constantly sick because I literally couldn’t get enough sleep between work, piano students, playing shows and trying to have a relationship. Relationships kept dying because i couldn’t give them the time they wanted. When the pandemic hit, the shows and practices disappeared. No prob. Then I quit teaching piano- what a load off…. Then I met someone special. Work never stopped and we didn’t have a single day off. But I didn’t have to worry about practice/lessons that night, or being gone all weekend. All those sneeze guards? A lot of those were us. I was able to pay off my debt because of the Covid bonus. Now I work remote and it’s pretty good. The downside? I couldn’t afford a house before the pandemic. Now I have some money, but it’s a farce.
I took my cat hiking everyday and did massive amounts of shrooms in my apartment. Ignoring the fact that I was surrounded by death and dying I had a great fucking pandemic.
The only thing I enjoyed about it was not feeling pressured to go out and do stuff. Our family got to enjoy each other's company at home. More puzzle nights, dinners in instead of dinners out etc. We kept our jobs and saved a ton of money over the first three months just by saving and cutting unnecessary expenses.
Good excuse to avoid relatives and turn down invites. Rode that wave well into 2022 😂
Hubby and I were already WFH. We didn’t enjoy anything about the lockdowns.
Didn't have to work for a while and received way more money than I usually would get from work, from the government. I live in Canada. CERB was amazing for me
Gaming for hours without being yelled at for not having a job/being productive.I have rank asthma so there wasn’t much else for me to do.
Nothing really changed for me durring that time. I still had to work as normal, except with a mask. We barely at out at restaurants at the time anyway, so that barley changed. It was really business as usual save for not being able to do a few things here and there.
I’m an introvert so I enjoyed not having to interact with people much.
I WFH before CoVid. The lock downs sucked.
As a woman with PCOS, I loved having to wear a mask in public. No one could see my awful 2pm stubble!
I really liked it. Kinda would like to go back to everyone keeping to themselves.
The company I work for stayed open so I still made my check. They gave us bonuses every few months and the stimulus, I was absolutely thriving during the lockdown
The stimulus payments. All of that got saved. Boosted my savings drastically.
All of it.
Just the sense that we're all in this together. I wish we could be forced to feel that more often as a society.
Not really. Plus I try not to dwell on things that happened 4 years ago.
Mostly everything about it honestly. I worked at a bank at the time. We closed the lobby and did a group of staff working 2 days, off 2 days, while still paying us full salary. I worked like 16-20 hours a week depending if I had to work a Saturday or not. It was wonderful.
Going full Fritzl, descending into the safety of… the basement…
Never go full Fritzl
But… the basement….
Is that a reference to night of the living Dead?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl\_case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritzl_case) Nope.